RUTTER: Mass of the Children

Choir of Clare College Cambridge;
Brown, Tim;
Farnham Youth Choir;
Clare Chamber Ensemble

8.557922

John Rutter tells us that the wrote the Mass of the Children to join together children’s and adults’ voices, remembering his own boyhood experience, remembering his own boyhood experience, singing in the choir for the Decca recording of Britten’s War Requiem: ‘I wanted to write a work that would bring them [adults and children] together in a more joyful context than a requiem.’ The brief Wedding Canticle is written serenely for mixed choir, flute and guitar, and is directly and beautifully presented here as a closing bonus. But it did not seem an ideal choice to include on this CD Rutter’s song-cycle, Shadows, which apparently attempts to recreate the tradition of the melancholy lute songs of the Elizabethan era. They are sung simply and often mournfully by Jeremy Huw Williams, accompanied most delicately by Stewart French on the guitar. But it is the lively songs, like Gather ye rosebuds and In a goodly night, which come off best.• Penguin Guide, January 2009

CD

Muzyka klasyczna

Naxos

10-04-2006

747313292226